Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Reich and Italy were determined at all times to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, and, second, that the Axis powers had agreed not to request from the Yugoslav Government during the war the right to march through or transport troops over Yugoslav territory.

-Germany widened its blockade of Britain to include Iceland, and extends it to within three miles of Greenland,

-Marshal Rodolfo Graziani resigned as Chief of the Italian General Staff and was succeeded by General Mario Roatta. Graziani's command in Libya was taken over by General Italo Gariboldi, who becomes also the new Governor of the Colony.

March 26-There were outbreaks, because of the Axis-Yugoslav pact, among the peasantry of Central Serbia, and the mountaineers of Montenegro.

--Martial law prevailed in several Syrian cities following two days of riots in which 12 persons were killed in Damascus and Aleppo. -Japan's Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, on his arrival in Berlin from Moscow, said, in a message to the German people: "the Japanese nation is with you in joy or sorrow."' Japan, he said, believes in the Reichsfuehrer and in the outstanding qualities of the German people "and will not lag behind you in fidelity, courage and firm determination to arrange the world on the basis of the new order." March 27-In Yugoslavia, a revolt occurred, headed by Gen. Dusan Simovitch, the Chief of Aviation. The Cabinet of Cvetkovitch, which had put the country into the Axis, quit in a body; Chief Regent, Prince Paul, fied from Belgrade; King Peter II (17) was proclaimed as ruler, and took charge of the army, navy and the government; a new cabinet was appointed, headed by Simovitch, with Momtchilo Nincich as Foreign Minister; the Regents resigned; the King appealed "to all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to go on with their normal work."

-Military mobilization was begun as officers arrived from Sarajevo, Bosnia, where, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis of Austria and his wife were assassinated by Gavrillo Princip, a Serb student. King Peter took the oath March 28, when Gen. Simovitch informed the Reich that Yugoslavia would faithfully respect "all outstanding engagements" and strive for absolute neutrality enforced by the Yugoslav Army. -In Eritrea the mountain city, Cheren, which had been under British seige for two weeks, was surrendered by Italian troops. In Ethiopia, the British took the Moslem city of Harar. In Libya, Italian and German forces occupied El Agheila, on the endge of the Sirte Desert. -President Roosevelt, at sea, signed the bill making $7,000,000,000 available at once to produce war materials for Great Britain and her allies. -Prime Minister Churchill signed in London the agreement whereby the Atlantic base sites in territories under British control will be leased to the United States for 99 years, in return for 50 U. S. destroyers now serving in the British Navy. March 28-In a night battle in the Ionian Sea (in the Eastern Mediterranean) between British and Italian naval squadrons, in which capital ships as well as cruisers fought, five Italian vessels were sunk-three cruisers and two destroyers. Rome stated that the British lost a heavy cruiser and two other craft. London denied any loss of ships or crews, but said two aircraft were missing. British warships, it was stated, sank the Italian cruisers Pola, Zara and Fiume, and the destroyers Maestrale and Vincenze Gioberti. The battle lasted through the night. At daybreak hundreds of survivors were still clinging to objects in the water; 800 were saved. According to British officers their cruiser, Orion, first saw the Italian fleet early on March 28, notified the main British fleet and spent the rest of that day "flirting" with the enemy ships, finally "luring' them into range of British battleship guns, and then the fight was on. The British called it "The Battle of Cape Matapan.'

March 29 German planes again attacked Bristol in a "starvation raid."

-Germany ordered all nationals out of the Province of Serbia. Italians began leaving by the hundred and British women also were advised to go quickly.

March 30-Under authority of the 1917 Espionage Act, and because of information that crews on Italian and other interned ships were secretly disabling the engines therein, the U. S. Coast Guard seized 28 Italian, two German and 35 Danish ships under German control, and detained those aboard; one Italian vessel was taken over

at Boston; five in Newark, N. J.; four in Philadelphia; two in Baltimore; two in Newport News, Va; three in Norfolk, Va., and others in Wilmington, N. C.; Savannah, Ga.; Jacksonville, Fla.; New Orleans, Houston, Tex.; Mobile, Ala.; Portland, Ore.; San Juan, P. R., and Cristobal, Canal Zone; 15 of the Danish ships were tied up in New York, seven in Baltimore, three in Boston, two each in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Jacksonville and Norfolk, and one each in Portland, Me., and Grays Harbor, Wash. -British warships attempting to intercept a convoy of four French merchant ships laden with "important war material for Germany" were fired on by French shore batteries in Algeria. The British vessels, it was said, refrained "in the interests of humanity" from firing on the merchantmen, but scored hits on the shore guns. Vichy said its ships had been passing from French Morocco to Algeria and denied war materials were being transported for Germany. March 31-The Liverpool Cotton Exchange closed for the duration.

-The Continental Oil Co. was promoted by the German Government to exercise exclusive control of German oil interests-from the oil fields themselves to the transportation of oil in tankers to Germany and the distribution of oil within the country and within the German-dominated continent.

1941-APRIL

April 1-Congress, in affirmation of the Monroe Doctrine, passed a joint resolution declaring that the United States would not recognize "any transfer, and would not acquiesce in any attempt to transfer any geographic region in this hemisphere from one non-American power to another non-American power." If such an attempt is made, this government will consult immediately with the other American republics in compliance with the consultative declaration of the Panama conference of 1939.

-Wheat has been planted in the hundreds of acres of park lands surrounding the Palace of the League of Nations, at Geneva. The grounds have been requisitioned by the Swiss State. -British forces took possession of Asmara, capital of Eritrea.

Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador took possession of German and Italian merchant ships in their ports and held the crews; eight or more of the crafts had been damaged by those aboard, and several were scuttled.

-Mexico and the United States signed an agreement for the reciprocal use of airfields. -Gov. J. P. Heil, of Wisconsin, wired the President for Federal troops, to avoid "bloodshed and possible loss of life" at the Allis-Chalmers defense plant in Milwaukee. The local police had turned fire hose and the tear gas guns of their armored riot car on striking members of the Congress of Industria Organizations' United Automobile Workers Union, and the strikers retaliated with rocks, bricks, bottles and eggs. More than 30 persons were injured, several seriously. -After a sit-down C.I.O. strike in the Dearborn, Mich. (River Rouge) Ford auto plant, a general strike was called there, and 85,000 workers were made idle.

April 2-The Ford and Allis-Chalmers plants suspended production in Dearborn, Mich., and Milwaukee. Both concerns have large defense contracts.

-The British Admiralty announced that a submarine operating in the Mediterranean had sunk an Italian submarine and the 3,645-ton tanker Laura Corrado. Simultaneously, the commanderin-chief of the East Indies station reported the sinking by aircraft of the 1,526-ton Italian destroyer Pantera.

-The Peruvian Government has cancelled its contract with the (German) Luftansa Airline, and has taken possession of its planes. April 3-Recapture, by Axis forces, of Benghazi, the Eastern Libyan capital, was announced officially in Cairo, headquarters of the British Army of the Nile, where it was stated that the evacuating troops had "inflicted considerable casualties" on the German and Italian troops and tank units as they withdrew from the Mediterranean coastal city of about 60,000 normal population. The place had been captured eight weeks before from the Italians when they were fighting alone, before the Germans joined them in the African campaign.

-In Budapest, Count Paul Teleki, 61, Premier of Hungary, was found dead in his bed. A government announcement said he committed suicide by shooting himself.

-In Yugoslavia, Vladimir Matchek, political leader

of the Croats, informed the government he would rejoin it and accept the post of First Vice Premier. He called upon the military eligibles of his people to enter wholeheartedly into the general mobilization for the defense of the land "against the threat of aggression." German and Italian diplomatic staffs quit Belgrade.

April 4-German armed forces moved toward Yugoslavia through Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria; four divisions of Tyrolean mountaineers passed into Italy. Hungarian roads and railroads are choked with troops and equipment moving southward to take up positions in forts near Szeged, Mohacs and Nagy Kanizsa; two German divisions passed through Budapest in a stream of arms. men and armored cars, into the Tisza Valley toward the Yugoslav Banat. From the Carpathian Range they are crossing Slovakia into Ruthenia. Every train from Belgrade was crowded with refugees.

-Germany and France signed an agreement by which unoccupied France will send to occupied territory 755,000 head of cattle, 600,000 head of pigs and calves, 36,000 tons of vegetable oil, 100,000 tons of salt, 60,000 tons of fresh vegetables, 8,000 tons of cheese and 643,450 gallons of wine. Occupied France will send in return 800,000 tons of grain, 200,000 tons of sugar, 100,000 tons of bran and 800,000 tons of potatoes. -German planes raided Bristol, England; British planes attacked Brest. In the Mediterranean German aircraft bombed a convoy near Crete, hitting a 12,000-ton British troop transport, Berlin said.

-The U. S. government rejected the German and Italian protests against the seizure of Axis ships and rebuked the two powers for violation of law while their ships were enjoying this nation's hospitality. President Roosevelt charged the Italian Naval attache with ordering the sabotage. Secretary Hull said that of the 27 Italian vessels in ports 25 were so badly damaged that extensive repairs in shipyards would be necessary to make possible their navigation.

April 5-The encirclement of Yugoslavia by German armed forces proceeded; eight new divisions jammed the Hungarian roads, armored unit concentrated at Bela Crkva, on the Rumanian frontier one and one-half hours from Belgrade, and the first Reich troops entered Albania, some of them by airplane transports. -Russia and Yugoslavia signed, in Moscow, a fiveyear friendship and non-aggression pact, in which it was stipulated that "in the event of aggression against one of the contracting parties on the part of a third power, the other contracting party undertakes to observe a policy of friendly relations towards that party.' -In Italian East Africa, British forces took Adowa and Adigrat; in Ethiopia, British South African troops crossed the Awash River and got within 80 miles of Addis Ababa. April 6-Chancellor Hitler, in an Order of the Day to the German Army of the East (broadcast at 5 a.m, by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels) proclaimed war on Yugoslavia. -The Yugoslav government moved to Vranes, 75 miles south of Sarajevo. German planes bombed Belgrade. The Gerran troops "advanced on all fronts" but met "strong resistance," particularly in the Struma Valley, where Britain's Australasian soldiers had been stationed. Athens said some areas in Thrace and Macedonia had been taken by the enemy.

-Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, was sur

rendered to the British without resistance. It had been occupied by the Italians since May 5, 1936.

-In Cyrenaica, Italian and German armored and motorized forces occupied Barca and Tokra. April 7-In Greece, Axis forces occupied Western Thrace, to the sea, near the Turkish border. German planes again bombed Belgrade; British planes attacked Sofia, and, in Albania, with Yugoslav aid, they raided Scutari. Italian aircraft shelled Cattara and the air base at Mostar. Greek resistance was concentrated in the narrow Struma Valley and in the steep gorges in Macedonia. -Britain severed diplomatic relations with Hungary, and her planes, with those of Yugoslavia, dropped some bombs on Hungarian border towns. -German planes ranged over the Clydeside. England, and bombed London for the first time in 18 days. Bristol, Liverpool, Ipswich and Harwich suffered.

-In East Africa, British forces took Debna Markos. -President Roosevelt signed the $4,389,284,174 fifth supplemental defense appropriations bill carrying funds for 4,750 new warplanes and

"critical" equipment for an army of 4,000,000 men. The Army gets $4,089,767,354 in cash and contract authorizations. The balance goes to the Navy, chiefly for ordnance, auxiliary ships and anti-aircraft defenses for merchant ships. He also signed the $1,414,626,838 appropriation bill for the government's independent agencies. April 8-In Greece, the Germans drove down the Vardar Valley, through Guyvgueli Pass, to within 23 miles of Salonika, cutting off the Greek troops in Western Thrace. A German mechanized division, about 11,000 troops, 350 tanks and 3,000 other vehicles, reached the Greek frontier through Yugoslavia late on April 7 and occupied Doiran. A Yugoslav troop withdrawal in South Serbia exposed the Greek left flank. German forces took the city of Skoplje. -President Roosevelt in a message to the Yugoslav King promised material supplies. He called the German attack a "criminal assault.'

-In North Africa (Libya) Axis forces captured the port of Derna. In East Africa the British cap tured the Red Sea port of Massaua. -German planes raided Coventry, England; the British bombed Kiel, German naval base. April 9 German tank and armored car units advancing southward from Yugoslavia captured Salonika, which had been set afire. Other German forces broke through the Metaxas (Greek) line, took Xanthe and reached the Aegean Sea and still others, advancing across Southern Serbia from Bulgaria had taken Veles and Tetovo and cut the Yugoslavs off from land communication with Greece and their allies there. German motorized and tank units in the group under Col. Gen. Paul von Kleist took Nish. German forces advancing from the Austrian border occupied Maribor and established a bridgehead on the south bank of the Drava River.

-A Berlin communique said 2,000 British troops and six generals had been captured at Mekili. south of Derna, in Libya, and Italian quarters said Axis forces had reached Tobruk but did not take it.

-Ten U. S. Coast Guard cutters of approximately the same displacement as destroyers have been released to Britain to aid in combating U-boats. -The 35,000-ton U. S. battleship, North Carolina, 704 feet long, was launched in the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn.

-British planes set fire to the State Opera House in Berlin, the Prussian State Library, the University, and the Belevue Palace. Emden and Potsdam also were bombed.

The

April 10-The Danish Minister at Washington signed an agreement with the U. S. Government granting the latter the right to construct, maintain and operate in Greenland any "landing fields, seaplane facilities and radio and meteorological installations" it deems necessary. United States also obtains the right to "improve and deepen harbors and anchorages and the approaches thereto," to install aids to navigation by air and sea and to "construct roads, communication services, fortifications .. and housing for personnel." The United States agrees so to do. The pact was repudiated by King Christian, and the Danish Minister, Henrik de Kauffman, was recalled from the United States, and on April 16 was ousted from his post by royal resolution. The German Government declared the U. S. move unlawful.

German forces occupied Zagreb, where a separate State of Croatia was set up under Dr. Ante Pavelich and an extremist named Kvaternik, both once sentenced to death by a French court for complicity in the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 at Marseilles. Kvaternik is known also as Egon Kramer. Ljubljana also was taken. April 11-President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order removing the area at the entrance to the Red Sea from the combat zone which United States ships are prohibited from entering. He created the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply with price fixing powers, and put Leon Henderson at its head.

-In Cyrenaica, the Germans captured Mekili, 50 miles southwest of Derna. -German mechanized units broke through Bitolj Pass, on the Greek-Jugoslav frontier, and advanced into the Allied left flank in the Florina region. On the right flank, German forces driving down the Aegean coast were striking Allied lines near Yanitza, 30 miles west of Salonika. Reported contact between Italian units and German forces near Lake Ochrida was cofirmed by the German High Command. -Brest. Merignac, Dusseldorf, Bristol, Southampton. Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham were objects of reprisal air raids. The Coventry raid was severe.

-The Iraq Parliament has elected Sherif Sharaf as Regent in place of the Emir Abdul Illah, who fled when Rashid Ali Beg Gailani staged a coup d'etat last week.

-The strike which began on April 1 at the Ford auto plant in River Rouge, Mich., was settled by an agreement for an election among the workers. April 12-German forces in Northern Yugoslavia took Varazdin, north of Zagreb, and Karlovac, to the southeast. Italian forces operating in Northwest Yugoslavia occupied Ljubljana, previously taken by the Germans, and were proceeding south along the Sava Valley. Susak, Yugoslav twin city of Italian Fiume, was taken by Fascist troops after Yugoslav forces had withdrawn. Italian forces have also taken Dibra, on the Yugoslav-Albanian frontier.

April 13-Japan and Soviet Russia signed, in Moscow, a five-year neutrality pact, which said: "Both contracting parties undertake to maintain peaceful and friendly relations between them and mutually respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of the other contracting party. Should one of the contracting parties become the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third Powers, the other contracting party will observe neutrality throughout the duration of the conflict."

-Pope Pius, in an Easter broadcast from the Vatican, appealed to the belligerents to refrain from the use of "still more deadly weapons": also translated "still more homicidal instruments.

-Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, was formally occupied by German troops after a four-day siege, in which several thousand perished. The capture of 12,000 Yugoslav stroops, including generals and 200 officers, in the Zagreb area was also reported.

-Axis forces occupied Bardia on the Mediterranean Coast of Libya. British forces along the Allied line in Greece began to "withdraw to new positions" after defeating with heavy enemy casualties a crack division of German Schutzstaffel troops, the War Office said.

April 14-The armies on the northern Greek front battled in extreme cold and deep snow in several sectors.

-Work was resumed in the Ford plant, Dearborn, Mich.; 25,000 employees returned. -In North Africa, Italian-German troops have crossed into Egypt and taken Solum. They had seized Fort Capuzzo. The siege of Tobruk continued.

-A steel strike in United States defense work was averted by an agreement by the big producers to raise their workers' pay 10 cents an hour, from April 1.

April 15-The Germans said one of their forces had moved southward in Greece and captured the towns of Ptolemais and Koziani and had then crossed the Vistritza River, north of Servia, while another force had pushed southwest from Salonika and crossed the lower Vistritza. The British covered their retreat with rear-guard action, according to Berlin..

-Germany and Italy, in personal telegrams to Ante Pavelich by Hitler and Mussolini, recognized the new "independent State of Croatia." -The British Mediterranean fleet destroyed, London stated, an Italian convoy of three destroyers and five transports between Sicily and Tripoli. The British lost one destroyer. Rome said only one Italian destroyer was sunk. -The British cruiser. Bonaventure, two years old, with a crew of 400 men, has been sunk while protecting a British convoy.

-Five hundred persons were killed in Belfast, Ireland, in a night raid by German planes. April 16-A Berlin communique said: "German motorized troops advanced to Sarajevo and occupied the city. Thousands of Serbs downed arms. in Greece speedy troops, in sharp pursuit of retreating British and Greek units, forced the enemy to fight near Mt. Olympus and the mountains west of there."

-In North Africa a thrust on Solum by British armored units supported by warships was repulsed.

-The 1,100-year-old Orthodox Autonomous Monastic Republic on Mount Athos, Greece, is now under German military rule.

in a German communique. Among those killed were Lord Josiah Stamp, banker, his wife and oldest son, and three of the servants. Lord Auckland also was killed. St. Paul's Cathedral was damaged. Parliament buildings were hit. April 17-In Yugoslavia, surrender of the army, Berlin said, was being negotiated by Germany with Serb military authorities in the absence of a recognized Yugoslav government, fighting having stopped on all Yugoslav fronts. -In Greece, where the German forces still are advancing, and the Greeks are trying to withdraw from Albania, German pressure is reported strong in the regions of Grevena and of Servia in Greece and south of Koritza in Albania. In the last of these sectors, it is stated, Greek infantrymen with bayonets have been inflicting losses on the attackers, principally Italians. -The Italian forces in Northern Albania, having overcome resistance of the Serbs, are now working up the Dalmatian coast toward Ragusa, Rome reported. At the same time, the Second Army, which took Spalato, was moving down toward Ragusa.

-A German warship in the South Atlantic shelled and sank the Egyptian steamer, Zamzam, on which were several Americans.

-Alexander Korizis, 56, Premier of Greece, committed suicide, in Athens.

April 18-Chancellor Hitler flew to Greece to see how things were going on. The German communique said: "By the evening of April 17 the entire Serb Army, as far as it had not yet been disarmed, capitulated. Fighting in Yugoslavia thus was concluded at noon, April 18. The number of prisoners and the amount of booty cannot yet be estimated. The occupation of the remaining parts (of Yugoslavia) is almost completed. On the Dalmatian coast Italian troops occupied Ragusa and Mostar, and in an advance southward occupied Cetinje." The retreat of the Allies left them with a shortened defense line extending from the Mount Olympus area on the Aegean coast to the region southwest of Konitza near the Albanian border.

April 19--In Greece, King George II took personal command of the State and installed Kostas Kotzias as Premier in a "temporary" military government. The German communique said: Troops fighting in Greece, in a further advance, pushed through the mountains northeast of Pindus. In thrusts past both sides of Olympus the rear guards of the British main forces were repulsed and the southern exits of the mountains taken in fighting and sharp pursuit. On the Thessaly plains the important road junction of Larissa was taken. Mountaineers hoisted the Reich's war flag on Olympus' (on April 16). -Chancellor Hitler celebrated his 52nd birthday in his railway car, at midnight, "somewhere in the Balkans" after getting word from his commanders that his troops had broken through the mountain passes and were on the Plains of Thessaly, pursuing enemy forces southward. -London was again raided by German planes. Berlin also suffered.

April 20-In Greece, a German column occupied Trikkala, a railway town. A London communique said: "Greek and Imperial troops are continuing their withdrawal covered by rear guards. By able handling and determined fighting these rear guards have succeeded in delaying the German advance and have inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy."

-The London Board of Trade declared Yugoslavia "enemy occupied territory."

-The advance of Italian forces to the AlbanianGreek frontier, whence they had been driven by the Greeks last Autumn, was announced by Rome. April 21-A British army of 50,000 to 80,000, made up largely of Australians and New Zealanders, and covered in its rear by Greek troops, is fighting a slow retreat to the southernmost embarkation point of Greece. A Berlin High Command communique said: "German troops in pursuit of the defeated enemy in Greece pushed southward far beyond Larissa. Other forces advancing across the Pindus Mountains to the west took a mile-high pass near Metsovo. In Albania Italian troops in a further advance reached the Greek border at many points." The official German news agency reported that the air force had sunk five transports totaling 23,000 tons and damaged four others, all loaded with troops, in attacks between Crete and the island of Euboea. Nazi bombers were said to be raiding Greek harbors.

-The Italian Second Army occupied the Yugoslav port of Spalato (Split) and Rome appointed Civil commissioners for Slovenia and Dalmatia. -More than 300 German planes flew over London for eight hours, dropping fire bombs and high explosives. It was the longest and most widespread since the war began, and was particularly-Dispatches a revenge attack-a reprisal for the raid by British aircraft on Berlin's "residential sections" on the night of April 9-so it was officially stated

from Beirut, Lebanon, said that a plane carrying King Peter II of Yugoslavia had reached Jerusalem by a flight over the Mediterranean, during which an unidentified member

of the Yugoslav Cabinet was killed. The plane was attacked in the air, it was said. -The Duke of Aosta, Italian Viceroy of Ethiopia, has refused a demand for unconditional surrender from Gen. Cunningham, leader of the British forces in East Africa, who said that he would not be responsible for the safety of the white population of Ethiopia in territory not Occupied by British troops.

-British battleships bombed the Mediterranean port of Tripoli, in Italian Libya, fired ten tons of heavy shells for 42 minutes and then withdrew leaving seven vessels crippled and the port in flames, they said.

April 22-German troops via Larissa, over destroyed
roads, took Lamia (at the gate to the mountain
pass of Thermopylae) and Volos an "evacuation"
port on the Aegean Sea.) German trops landed
from speedboats on the island of Samothrace
near the entrance to the Dardanelles and also
attacked the British-held island of Lemnos some
miles to the south, according to Istanbul reports.
Meanwhile the Italians are advancing in Greece
from the west.

-Turkey is evacuating the civil population from
Istanbul.

-Southern Greece and ships leaving Greek ports
are being pounded by swarms of Nazi planes
attacking ahead of Germany's Panzer divisions,
the Greek Government said. Vessels in the Gulf
of Athens were bombed and machine-gunned
without regard for their size.

April 23-The Greek army in Epirus and Macedonia
surrendered unconditionally to the Italian High
Command of forces in Albania and to the High
Command of German forces in Greece. The
formal terms were signed in Salonika by Gen.
The
Tsola Koglou for Greece, by Gen. Jodl for
Germany, and by Gen. Ferrero for Italy.
pact said: "Cessation of hostilities for German
troops and Greek troops of Epirus and Macedonia
stands as agreed upon in surrender terms of April
21. Cessation of hostilities between Italian
troops and the Greek Army of Epirus and Mace-
donia will go into effect today, April 23, at 6 p.m.,
except for Greek detachments on the Italian
front who already have laid down their arms.
With the conclusion of the present convention of
surrender, the convention concluded April 21
between the German High Command in Greece
and the Commander of the Greek Army in Epirus
and Macedonia ceases to be effective."
-Meantime, King George and his Ministers had
fled by planes to the Greek Island of Crete, 60
miles to the south. The King there proclaimed
the surrender as void and made without his
knowledge or consent.

Machek, the Croat leader, he went by plane to
Egypt.

April 26-German parachute troops descended on
the isthmus of Corinth, captured it and then
the city of Corinth, preventing the British from
destroying the canal. The Adolf Hitler Division
of the Elite Guards, after advancing southward,
west of the Pindus Mountains, had crossed the
Gulf of Corinth, entering the Peloponnesus
from the north, and took the port of Patras. The
German war flag was raised over Olympia, in
the Western Peloponnesus, eight miles east of the
Ionian port of Pyrgos and 40 miles southwest of
Patra.

-German and Italian light mobile forces crossed
the Egyptian-Libyan frontier.

April 27-The Germans took Athens without re-
sistance. The swastika flag was raised over the
Acropolis. Italians had been trying to get to
Athens since Oct. 28, but were stopped in Al-
bania by Greek invading forces.
-Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Brit-
ish Parliament and the United States and the
rest of the world by radio that President Roose-
velt had pledged all possible aid-ships, planes,
munitions, food and a wide sea patrol. If enough
of such aid is forthcoming, he added, the British
are sure to win.

April 28-Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, 39, resigned
his commission as a colonel in the U. S. Army
Air Corps Reserve. In a letter to the President
he said he could see "no honorable alternative."
The Chief Executive, in a press conference April
25, had classed Lindbergh as a defeatist and an
appeaser, and had likened such people to the
copperheads of the American Civil War. These
allusions, the Colonel's letter stated, were "im-
plications" attacking "my loyalty to my country,
The Secretary
my character, and my motives."
of War accepted the resignation.
-Italian aeronautical units (parachutists), Black-
shirts and infantry troops, took the Greek island
of Corfu, also Preveza on the Gulf of Arta, thus
Occupying a triangle extending from Perat, on
the southern frontier of Albania, through Yanina
and Arta to Preveza. Germany, later, occupied
the isles of Lesbos and Chios, and Italy took
Amorgos and five other of the Cyclades Group.
-In Ethiopia, British forces took Dessie, 140 miles
northeast of Addis Ababa.
April 29-Capt. James Roosevelt arrived at Chung-
king, China, in time to experience his first air
raid alarm. He took tea with Gen. Chiang Kai-
shek and wife, and delivered a message of greet-
ing from President Roosevelt, his father, who, it
is stated, has assigned him as a military observer
in Africa and the Near East.

vessels were not barred from entering combat
zones when needed in the interests of hemisphere
defense. London has stated that the area in the
North Atlantic where there is the highest mor-
tality among merchant ships from submarines
and raiders begins just outside the line about
400 miles west of the Irish Coast and touches
the usual sea lanes.

-German long-range cannon fixed on the Channel
shores between Calais and Bologne, shelled the
British coast once an hour, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
-Plymouth, England, was declared an evacuation

zone.

April 30-British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden read a letter in Commons from Alexander Korizis, Greek Premier, in which the latter agreed to the withdrawal of the British force from Greece. -German war cruisers are roaming the Indian Ocean and have recently sunk more than 57,000 tons of ships carrying food to England. Some of the sinkings are attributed to the pocket battleship, Admiral Scheer.

-German land forces continued their advance down toward Athens through the Thermopylae-President Roosevelt announced that U. S. naval Pass. Waves of German bombing planes smashed at Greek ports and waiting ships in the harbors of Piraeus, Salamis and Megara and "caused considerable damage to ships and harbor installations," it was stated authoritatively. The Gulf of Corinth also was bombed. -In New York City, more than 30,000 persons heard Col. Charles A. Lindbergh address the first mass meeting of the American First Committee. "The British Government," he said, "has one last desperate plan remaining; they hope that they may be able to persuade us to send another American Expeditionary Force to Europe and to share with England militarily, as well as financially, the flasco of this war. We in this country have a right to think of the welfare of America first, just as the people in England thought first of their own country when they encouraged the smaller nations of Europe to fight against hopeless odds." -Britain's second new 35,000-ton battleship, the Prince of Wales, sister ship of the King George V, is now in commission, London announced. April 24-German planes raided Greek portsPiraeus, Aegina, Elusis, Megara-to destroy, or hinder, English, Australian, New Zealand troops Berlin said five seeking to escape by ships. transports were destroyed and ten other large In the vessels were damaged, also a destroyer. Thermopylae Pass Greek soldiers hindered the advance of the Germans toward Athens. April 25-German forces captured Thermopylae Pass; German planes attacked, at Piraeus, Volos and other ports where the English and Anzacs were escaping on their troop ships. The transports were under a rain of bombs dropped from the air while British planes attacked the German planes. Italian planes also took part in raids on the transports and continued their daily bombing of the fortified Greek Island of Crete. Meantime Prince Paul of Yugoslavia had fled to Athens where he was a guest of King George. Thence, after wiring in his mother's name to

1941-MAY

May 1-Italian forces have occupied the Greek
In
Islands of Cephalonia, Levkas and Zanto.
Cephalonia a full company of parachutists, armed
with rifles and machine guns, dropped near the
the port of Argostoli, while other Italian troops
landed from seaplanes.

May 2-Iraq artillery opened fire on British forces
at Habbaniyah, an airport 60 miles west of Bag-
dad. The Premier said England had violated a
secret treaty, which gave British troops the right
to pass across Iraq but not to accumulate there.
-Italy is setting up in Yugoslavia, the Province of
Ljubljana, including that Slovene city.
-Civilian evacuation of Istanbul is proceeding.
-President Roosevelt called for industrial produc-
tion on a 24-hour day, seven-day week basis.
May 3-German and Italian troops marched in a
two-hour victory parade in Athens, with a large
showing of infantry, tanks and heavy artillery

The Greek army has been officially disbanded. -Iraq asked Russia for mutual diplomatic recognition, which was granted.

-In Italy, the meat ration to civilians was cut down from three days to two-Saturdays and Sundays; rice is to substitute for corn in May and June. Veal now averages nearly 73 cents a pound; fresh chickens $1 a pound; cheese and fruit also are expensive.

-The British Admiralty announced that it had lost only four transports and two destroyers in the withdrawal from Greece, which began April 24.

May 4-In Berlin, Chancellor Hitler, in a speech in the Reichstag, summarizing his Balkan victories, their causes and results, declared as an "absurd lie" the statements of "democratic agitators" that Germany intended to do any harm to the United States. He called Churchill a "world incendiary" and the most bloodthirsty amateur strategist the world has ever known." Yugoslavia, he said, had fallen a victim to British intrigue. In that campaign, he stated, the German forces captured 320,062 Serb soldiers, 218,000 Greek soldiers, and more than 9,000 English, New Zealand and Australian soldiers also 500,000 rifles, over 1,000 guns, "many thousand" machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, also vehicles and ammunition. The German losses (killed) in Yugoslavia and Greece, the Chancellor said, were 1,151 officers and men, of whom 52 were in the air force; 3,752 were wounded; five detachments constituted the force used in Greece. London later said seven divisions actually were used by Hitler.

--Cologne and Liverpool were objects of reprisal raids by British and German planes. -The Greek Navy announced the Germans had destroyed three destroyers, five hospital ships, 11 torpedo boats and other auxiliaries, more than 30 in all.

-The American Red Cross has lost 11 ships out of 369 carrying relief consignments across the Atlantic. No vessel carrying only Red Cross supplies was sunk.

May 5-An official Italian war bulletin at Rome said: "In the Alagi sector in East Africa our valorous troops repelled an enemy attack, inflicting heavy losses. Among the dead were many Jews from Palestine." In that same area, according to the Associated Press correspondent, the British are using Garwahli soldiers drawn from Indian hill tribes. Among the Australian. troops in Greece were Maoris.

-During an air raid by German planes on Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in which a number of persons were killed, Eire fire brigades from Dublin and Dandalk came across the border and helped put out the fires.

-An Italian force of 400,000 is being evacuated in Albania. Only sufficient forces to police the country are being left.

-Haile Selassie sat again on his throne at Addis Ababa as Emperor of Ethiopia. -Britain declined an offer by Turkey to mediate with Iraq. It was declared that withdrawal of Iraq troops from Habbania was an "essential prerequisite" to any negotiations. The Premier, Rashid Ali Beg Gailani is said by Britain to be pro-German. The Iraq forces have occupied Rutha. -London stated R.A.F. planes in an attack at Brest had made direct hits on the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

-Ottawa announced the loss-the first loss-of a Canadian Military unit. in the Atlantic, on the way to England; 75 men were lost. --President Roosevelt called for creation of the world's most powerful fleet of long-range bombing planes.

May 6-U. S. Secretary of War Stimson told the people of the Americas, that it was of the greatest importance for this country to use its navy to assure the delivery of its munitions to Britain and to secure the seas. It was later officially stated at the White House that Mr. Stimson had, prior to its delivery, "talked to the President about the speech." -Kermit Roosevelt, son of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, resigned his commission as a Major in the British Army because of ill health. -Joseph Stalin, 62, became Premier of Soviet Russia, succeeding V. M. Molotov, 51, who had served also at one and the same time as Foreign Commissar. He continues in the latter post, to which he was appointed on May 4, 1939. Stalin retains his place as Secretary of the Communist party. The Supreme Soviet has also kept Molotov as Vice Premier. All these changes are embodied in three decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

-Japan and France signed two agreements for

economic collaboration between Japan and French Indo-China.

-The Canadian Ministry of National Defense stated that 11 Americans, described as "ferry pilots" (aviators) on their way to England, are "missing, believed lost." All were from the United States and were torpedoed in the Atlantic along with 75 members of Canadian military units.

May 7 Commons, 447 to 3. voted confidence in Churchill's conduct of the war; the House of Lords, the day before had sustained the Prime Minister unanimously.

The U. S. Navy is taking over the seagoing vessels of the Coast Guard, by oral direction of the President, who has approved the $3,415,521,750 appropriation for a two-ocean Navy.

May 8-Axis planes bombed the Suez Canal area for two hours, and, according to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, damaged the State Railroad, which carries shipments of the United States and British supplies that arrive over the Red Sea route.

--In Libya, where Australian and British troops are besieged at Tobruk, German infantrymen varied their daily attack by using flame throwers towed by tanks, on which the soldiers wore hoods. The Germans shot a 50-foot flame down a hole in a concrete outpost in which the defense troops were believed concealed. -Among the recent Atlantic British losses are two ships (16,000 tons) "ferrying" American supplies to England. The convoy was attacked by German submarines 750 miles east of the southern tip of Greenland. Another British liner, the 10,305ton Calchas, was torpedoed, about 500 miles off the cast coast of Africa.

May 9-Russia withdrew recognition of the fugitive governments of Norway, Yugoslavia and Belgium. -London announced April losses of ships due to German attacks as-British (60) 293,089 tons; Allied (43) 189,473 tons; neutral (3) 5,562 tons; total (106) 488,124 tons. These figures, not final, include the evacuation of Greece and Albania, and are exceeded only by those for June, 1940528,844 tons, which include the evacuation of Dunkerque. The total of the war, to May 1, 1941, is 5,832,027 tons. In April, 1917, the tonnage was 852,000.

-British troop convoys, on the way from Gibraltar to Alexandria, Egypt, were attacked by Italian and German planes in the Mediterranean between Sardinia and Tunisia. The battleship Renown was said to have been hit, also other war craft, and the German planes sank 2 merchant ships, it was stated. London denied that warships or merchant craft had been damaged. -In Egypt the heat has immobilized the troops on both sides, in the Western Desert.

May 10-Rudolf Hess, 47, deputy leader of the National Socialist party in Germany and Chancellor Hitler's personal representative, landed by parachute in a field near Glasgow, Scotland, after a flight by plane from Augsburg, in Bavaria. His fuel had become exhausted, so he jumped, and broke his ankle. The identity of the unexpected aviator was established by photographs, etc., which he carried. He also freely announced, in English, who he was. He was taken to a Glasgow hospital, and shortly after was shifted as a "prisoner of war." It was stated in Parliament on May 22 that his bailing out followed pursuit of his plane by a British aircraft. Hess asked to see the Duke of Hamilton. An interview came later. The Duke said he had no recollection of having ever before met Hess. The latter was officially labeled by his Nazi party associates in Berlin as a "deluded seeker of peace." They put him down as a "sick, deranged and muddled idealist, ridden with hallucinations traceable to World War injuries" and the party declared in a formal statement: "This will not interfere with the continuation of the war against England forced upon the German people." -In a two-day (May 10-12) attack on the Thames area in London, German planes numbering several hundred, moving in squadrons, damaged Westminster Abbey (roof torn open); Houses of Parliament (Commons Chamber smashed to pieces); Westminster Hall (roof burned); British Museum (Egyptian Section and the Library damaged-most of the contents had been moved); Big Ben, but it still chimes (later stopped and repaired) five hospitals, several churches, and "mile after mile of houses and shops of poor and rich alike" were blasted, burned or damaged. -There were also British two-day reprisal "terror" raids on Berlin and other German cities and places in which, as in London, civilians were major sufferers. The raids covered every important port in British or German control in the

« ZurückWeiter »